1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to counting, bundling, and dropping sheet like articles such as paper, greeting cards, envelopes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Bundling of product has been accomplished by placing product directly into boxes or putting items between lugs on a moving belt. Coordinating these systems with the flow of product to ensure accurate counts and providing tight, neat packaging has been a problem, particularly at high speeds.
Prior packaging systems using sheet feeding machines were subject to jamming and miss feeding due to uncoordinated movements of the sheet feeder and the infeed conveyor portions of the packaging machines, particularly during high speed operation. Providing a neat square bundle of products has heretofore proved challenging.
A sheet feeding device is affixed above a drop table, wherein the sheet feeder is supplied with a stack of items to be counted into batches and delivered to the drop table. When the sheet feeder has added a known number of items to a stack on the drop table the drop table receives a signal from a host machine to drop the batch onto an infeed conveyor leading to a product wrapper. A series of rods, serving as a floor under the bundle of items, is withdrawn from beneath the bundle allowing the bundle to drop onto the infeed conveyor belt. A signal from the host machine sent to a controller in the drop table tells the controller to activate a motor for withdrawing the rods from beneath the bundle. The motor then returns the rods to their original position for catching the items and signals the sheet feeder to begin sending new items to the drop table.
When the sheets are added to the batch at high speed, they are squared up into a tight package by a vibrator on the side of the sheets to align the sides of the sheets and by a tamper on the back of the sheets to align the sheets lengthwise.
The sheets of a batch can be accurately counted by the sheet feeder as the sheets are fed into the collection box. Since the collection box does not move relative to the sheet counter, it will count the batches and deliver them more reliably without jamming. The speed of counting and collecting can be increased since there is no coordination with a moving target such as a passing box or a space between lugs on a moving conveyor.
When the count is finished, the batch is dropped onto a moving belt for further packaging steps, such as overwrapping with film or the like.
It is an object of the invention to provide a machine for batching sheet items into bundles of a predetermined count and delivering the bundles to a take-away conveyor.
It is an object of the invention to provide a faster batching.
It is an object of the invention to prevent jamming.
It is an object of the invention to provide a batch, which is squared for tighter packaging.
It is an object of the invention to provide a means to jog the product as it is being batched to provide a squared up batch of sheets.
It is an object of the invention to provide a means to tamp the product as it is being batched to provide a squared up batch of sheets.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawing.